Hubble Telescope, before she was released from orbit to roam the universeWell, as a profound patron of the weird (It finds me anyway so I now subscribe), I have come to cherish the Australians. They make a national hero out of a man who wrestles alligators and idolize those who swim with sharks (In my opinion the indisputably DUMBEST thing I’ve ever heard of). And now another “Digger” has made the news Downunder. Yep, you’re gonna love this.
Neil McCallum and his son were vacationing on the Gold Coast of Australia and beach walking one morning when a kangaroo bounded by them and bounced off into the surf, apparently not at all concerned about the total absence of other mammalian life forms in waters where two hammerhead sharks had been spotted earlier in the week.
Neil and his boy, who hail from Queensland, (Australia) decided to keep their eyes on the ‘roo (I did not make that up. That’s what they call them there. ‘Roos’). And when this roo got caught in a riptide and was being slowly but implacably carried out to sea and probably into the devilish maws of a rapacious Devonian, Neil abandoned all thoughts of family, community and country, stripped down for action and dove into the surf.
In a feat of extra-human strength which will be talked about in that part of the world for hundreds of years to come, Neil McCallum, of the Queensland McCallums, effectively rescued a young marsupial from certain death. The entire nation of Australia is on its feet, cheering this one, He Who Swims With Roos, and this from a nation which has also given us Mel Gibson and Crocodile Dundee.
I think that’s pretty cool. However, I wonder how those glorious headlines would have read if Downunder’s new Everyman had ended up on the menu at Chez Shark. Do you think his widow and children would have been compensated for their loss? Did his life insurance policy cover getting eaten by a shark while attempting to rescue a drowning kangaroo? (I checked and mine doesn’t.)
And if Australia’s tabloids get ahold of it, will there be speculation on what really drove McCallum to such a potentially extreme measure of human sacrifice? Were they actually strangers, these two, or was there some prior relationship? Marsupials have pouches. Will the press wonder what was in that pouch which might have motivated McCallum? Will breathless readers really want to know?
That’s why I don’t court celebrity, immediate or posthumous. It makes life way too complicated. I do, however, love watching folks like Neil McCallum. Even when it’s not a slow news day in Seattle, they’re invariably still the best show in town.
And for those who have been asking about the brown bear who’s been scoping out our Seattle suburbs, he’s still at large and now apparently has company. One has been spotted north of downtown, in Ballard and Shoreline, which are right on the Puget Sound. Another has been seen roaming South Seattle near a big golf course.
State, county and city animal control authorities are working with local emergency services personnel and with residents of the neighborhoods “impacted”. It is fully anticipated that the bears will either find their way back to the deeper woods or will eventually get a friendly assist via a tranquilizer dart and a taxpayer paid ride home.
Yep, everybody’s being cool. Yogi and Boo Boo are just having an adventure and we’re treating them pretty much like any other tourists. (Chamber of Commerce is going to love that one. Sigh) And also quietly respecting that they were here first. The bears. Yogi and Boo Boo. Never mind. I digress.
Our thanks to a reader in Victoria, British Columbia who tipped us off to a possible academic American brain drain which seems due, at least in part, to the present economic climate. As Americans find themselves with less money for education and as American universities themselves are forced to increase tuition to offset the loss of funding from government and alumni sources, American students are going north of the border.
The Toronto Globe & Mail reports that McGill University has seen a 22 percent increase in American enrollment in the last five years. Other academic institutions across Canada cite similar growth statistics. The trend predates the current recession by well over ten years but enrollment figures have increased dramatically in the last year or so.
It’s not clear yet if Americans who graduate from Canadian colleges and universities then seek employment and settle in Canada or whether they return to the United States. It is apparent, however, that dollars which could be going into the American educational system are, instead, going north with those students.
I’m glad that even in times like these, some of us can still afford to give our kids a good education. If American universities cannot compete with the Canadians in that regard, as far as I’m concerned, that’s just another reason to look both inward and abroad for a better way to do things here at home.
And if you love good news as much as I do and figure that if they can do it anywhere, “by gum, by gosh, and by golly, we can do it here,” you’re also going to enjoy reading that even in the worst of economic times, dislocated workers start companies which succeed and, in some cases, become profound landmarks on the entrepreneurial landscape. Hewlett Packard, for instance, was born at the end of the Great Depression; the Hyatt Corporation, in the Recession of 1957 and Fed-Ex during the fuel crisis of 1973.
In Oregon, they’re showing that it can be done now, in the Pacific Northwest. Business licenses in Portland are actually UP since the start of this last downturn and that may very well be due in part to the efforts of the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network, a nonprofit organization which provides tools and training for new business owners. In a recent interview with Oregon Live, Tom Embree, a partner in a Tigard investment company, explained it this way.
"Down markets are great times to start a company. When people get laid off or choose to take buyouts, both startup founders and employees are created." He said that when venture capital is scarce and "it's difficult to raise money, you learn to do more with less.”
The State of Washington has endorsed this idea of the citizen entrepreneur by providing the unemployed here with the opportunity to learn how to start their own businesses while still being allowed to collect benefits and without needing to also look for work at the same time. Olympia seems to feel the state’s workforce is itself capable of retooling and history seems to bear this out as well.
And finally, here’s to the Space Shuttle Atlantis and to the venerable Hubble telescope. Unless NASA changes its mind, the space shuttles are being retired. Hubble is already enroute to the stars and beyond.
She’ll be sending us those incredible photographs for as long as she can. It’s a vast universe and she’s built to last. I wish her good luck and Godspeed. I’m going to miss her.
Until next time, then, take care, stay well and thanks for the ear.
Rusty
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